Yesterday marked the resignation of Chris Albrecht, Chief Executive of HBO. He was arrested in a messy personal matter over the weekend involving a girlfriend and assault, but the important thing here is Albrecht is the guy who greenlighted THE SOPRANOS. Oh, and SIX FEET UNDER. And ENTOURAGE, BIG LOVE, ROME, and THE WIRE. HBO, [...]

Box Office Weekly #065 (MP3 - 13.4 MB - 20.5 min)
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In todays show: I am become Canada, destroyer of worlds… TV viewership is down like Simon Cowell’s compassion level… and in my commentary; tips on how to break into showbiz. All this and Shrek has salad, today on Box Office Weekly.
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Sony Pictures released Spider-Man III in America this weekend. You do not need me to tell you this. Box Office Mojo has crunched the numbers, and it’s mighty impressive; as much for the way Sony handled it as for the acheivement itself. To quote:
Spider-Man 3 spun an estimated $148 million $153 million on over 10,000 [...]

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Hollywood, the big metaphorical town that showbiz lives in, is what it produces - an entertaining story. Here, reality is what you claim it is. The facts don’t matter to people nearly as much as your ability to make them suspend their disbelief. Just as obsessive compulsive disorder is a [...]

IMUS WILL SUE CBS RADIO

Teach THEM to hire him in the first place!
HASSELHOFF RELEASES DRUNKEN VIDEO AS A KIND OF “SELF-INTERVENTION”
He also produced BAYWATCH - can’t this guy collaborate on anything? 
GILMORE GIRLS CANCELLED
To be replaced by show where people talk at normal speeds about normal things.
VALENTI FUNERAL DRAWS MOVIE, POLITICAL FIGURES
No one really wanted to [...]

It’s no secret that one of America’s biggest exports is entertainment. Everybody thinks our cars suck, and our agriculture does okay but we’re so hungry that we eat most of it before it gets to the docks. However, the money we lavish on film and television, plus that indescribably American ‘tude, makes our shows big [...]

Even as SPIDER-MAN III breaks records in Japan and South Korea, a few days before breaking records in the US and every other damn place, Sony Pictures Entertainment is hedging its bets. Someone at the studio may have noticed that huge movies that cost enormous amounts of money will either make enormous amounts of money [...]

Box Office Weekly #064 (MP3 - 13.4 MB - 19.5 min)
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In todays show: scrappy independent Sony Pictures scores with a little art film called Spider Man III … an anti-piracy measure I’m mostly okay with… and in my commentary: NBC catches a break as it tries to screw some guys out of multi-millions. All [...]

The Hollywood Reporter this morning writes the obligatory product tie-in article about Spider-Man III. This kind of thing is as inevitable as it is profitable, but this time there is a creepy element. Most of the spots are produced in house by Sony. Sony is working overtime to ensure that the advertising pushes the movie [...]

Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, the creators of WILL AND GRACE, have dropped their suit against NBC Productions after a whirlwind civil trial which was complicated and featured an interesting twist. Let’s put it this way - Mutchnick and Kohan were winning with a $48 million settlement on Thursday morning, but by the end of [...]